Building One Global Entrepreneurial Ecosystem, Global Entrepreneurship Congress, Bahrain, 2019

Kuza Biashara participated in the Global Entrepreneurship Congress (GEC), Bahrain. Representatives from over 100 countries gathered with a common vision that the world needs more innovators, founders, doers and makers of things and that a vital path to creating more entrepreneurs is for their supporting ecosystems to collaborate, align, share and act as one global entrepreneurial ecosystem.

The focus of GEC 2019 is to explore how we can accelerate the development of healthier high performance ecosystems in the wake of a global entrepreneurial revolution. Delegations from each nation will be working to define new strategies inclusive of more of their citizens and to learn about new programs and tactics to take home and implement.

Video of the session: https://tinyurl.com/y38bpkrb

Photos of the event: https://www.flickr.com/photos/unleashingideas/page9

Philip Auerswald

Senior Advisor + Director for GEN eXponential | Global Entrepreneurship Network

Arvind Gupta, CEO MyGov India

Arvind has over 25 years of industry experience, having worked in diverse sectors in variety of leadership, policy and entrepreneurial profiles in India and Silicon Valley, USA. As the National Technology Head for world's largest political party, the BJP, he advises on the policies for data driven outreach, digital communication and modernisation. Mr. Arvind Gupta led the Digital, Social Media and Communication Campaign for the BJP and Shri Narendra Modi, which resulted in BJP creating electoral history and achieving its Mission 272+. He is the Co-founder of DigitalIndiaFoundation is a leading thought provoker in areas of Smart Cities, Internet Governance, Cyber Security, Electronics Manufacturing and DigitalPayments. He was awarded the Eisenhower Global Fellowship for Innovation for year 2014. He holds a Masters in Computer Science and MBA from University of Illinois, Urbana Champaign and B.Tech in Electronics from IIT-BHU, Varanasi.

Here are a few pointers to help you navigate your journey through #GEC2019.

First for weary travelers, logistics. Registration is open from 10:00AM on Sunday, April 14, and #GEC2019 officially begins at 8:45AM on Monday, April 15. Agenda and schedule information can be found at http://www.gec.co/program/.  Further information including information about ground transportation and more can be found from the GEC logistics team at Publicis Live who have been communicating with you already via email. If you still have questions, there will be staff at each of the three official hotels – the Westin, Le Meridien and the IBIS.  There is also an informal welcome reception starting at 6:00PM on Sunday evening at the Westin.

On opening day, Monday, April 15, we will start by updating you on your collective accomplishments over the past 12 months and sharing our plans ahead. While your Ministers meet as peers in closed session, we will spend the balance of the morning in the Plenary Hall seated in small groups working on a common vision for our global entrepreneurial ecosystem.

After lunch, led by facilitators throughout the convention center, we will organize by country delegation to work on designing better national ecosystems for our GEN chapters to help build. Then following a break back at your hotels, we will re-convene on Monday evening for our annual Compass Awards where we will recognize some of the best GEN work over the past year.

On Tuesday and Wednesday, we have organized dozens of parallel sessions for you to choose from around our primary themes. There are panels and workshops about countries and regions, demographic groups and industries, policymaking and research and, of course, sessions about each of GEN’s programs. We will conclude our formal sessions at the Bahrain International Exhibition and Convention Centre with a spotlight on the leaders in all of this – our entrepreneurs – and with some exponential thinking about the future.

Our sessions on Thursday morning at the Westin and Le Meridian hotels will be about pulling together everything you have learned over the three days in order to send you home with a toolbox and written plan of action for leveraging this source of global talent and knowledge. Whatever your interest in entrepreneurs, every member of every delegation has a role in their local ecosystem and we need each and every one of you to engage. At the GEC, we want to help you design a national vision and then provide you with the tools and a trusted network of peers and collaborators to help you achieve it.

Throughout the week, set against the Bahrain’s rich culture, there will be social events and meals designed to show you Bahrain and provide you with ample informal time for networking so you can share and listen and, especially if new to GEN, become a member of our rich and diverse community.  On Thursday afternoon, you will meet entrepreneurs and leaders from Bahrain’s ecosystem and end your visit with a surprise evening out at a place that has made Bahrain famous.